492 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ON THEIR WAV TO MARKET 



side the squalor of a provincial American 

 town or the suburbs and mean streets of 

 an English city. 



There are no vultures in Haiti, a nega- 

 tive feature which at once distinguishes 

 the island from Cuba. Jamaica, and the 

 Bahamas. In Cuba, the Bahamas, and 

 Jamaica there is the well-known turkey- 

 buzzard, with its plumage of glossy blue- 

 black and sepia brown, with satin white 

 underside to its wings and a naked head 

 and beak of crimson and white. 



In the Eastern and Southern States of 

 the Union and in Central and South 

 America there are other forms of buz- 

 zards, mostly the all-black one. But this 

 bird seems never to have existed in Haiti. 

 and those that have been introduced have 



died out; so that the 

 only scavenger of the 

 island is the pig. 



In many parts of 

 the Republic the pig, 

 originally introduced 

 by the Spaniards or 

 the French, has run 

 wild and developed 

 into a miniature black 

 wild boar. In a rather 

 leaner, gaunter type, 

 the pig is a never- 

 absent object from 

 the scenes of town 

 and country, and it is 

 a useful scavenger. 



The domestic pig 

 in Haiti is generally 

 hampered by an ex- 

 traordinary wooden 

 collar, which appar- 

 ently prevents it from 

 straying too far afield. 

 The same collar is 

 often applied to goats. 

 The Haitian cattle 

 are usually of a rather 

 Dutch type, perhaps 

 descended from 

 breeds introduced 

 from northern 

 France. The sheep 

 still have wool (which 

 they seem very anx- 

 ious to shed), and I 

 nowhere saw those 

 actual African forms of hairy sheep 

 which have somehow or other been intro- 

 duced into Cuba. 



The little horses of the country are a 

 most useful type, but the well-to-do peo- 

 ple ride handsome-looking Spanish barbs. 

 Horse breeding might be carried on in 

 Haiti to a very considerable extent, as the 

 climate and feeding seem to suit horses 

 remarkablv well. Donkevs are less used 



- 



than mules for purposes of transport. 



PORT AU PRINCE A PINK AND WHITE CITY 



"When one first approaches the capital 

 of Haiti — Port au Prince — by sea. it has 

 a comely aspect in the daytime, with its 

 new cathedral, with the twin cupolas, and 

 its great mass of pink and white houses 



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